Are new Sony PC games not a thing anymore? It’s… complicated.

If anyone needed further proof of the gaming industry being in a flux right now – compared to the state it’s traditionally been for two decades, at least – a brief look at how the big players are changing direction on so many things should be more than enough. Simply put: the next “generation” of gaming platforms competing for consumer attention and disposable income will probably not share much with the current one, partly due to strategy choices being made right now. The latest among those: Sony’s decision to refocus on PlayStation, keeping a certain amount of distance from the PC games market as a result.

That is, at least, what Jason Screier claimed in a Bloomberg report a few days ago, citing people familiar with the company’s future plans. Screier and Bloomberg have been correct about such matters in the past, so the article carries weight – especially since the reporter refers to specific upcoming games. According to his information, Sony will not be porting any new single-player PlayStation titles to PC, keeping them exclusive to the PS5 instead: Ghost of Yotei won’t be coming to PCs (despite much of the work for it being already done) and neither will the upcoming Saros. It’s safe to assume that Marvel’s Wolverine or Intergalactic won’t either.

While Bloomberg‘s report does not offer specific reasons why Sony’s approach regarding its PlayStation PC ports is changing, many speculate that the company does not want its most lucrative games to be playable on directly competing hardware, as Microsoft’s next Xbox and Valve’s Steam Machine are both essentially PCs.

Others think that, on top of that, Sony does not want its signature cinematic single-player games playable on handheld PCs because it would like them to work as exclusives for the company’s upcoming PS6 handheld. Others believe that the company is simply afraid that the value of PlayStation as a platform will be negatively affected without enough exclusive games, which is exactly what happened to Xbox.

Mere days after Bloomberg‘s story, GamesIndustry.biz published a different article on Sony’s reported pivot, citing research firm Newzoo’s relevant findings. The firm’s data shows that “PlayStation titles ported to PC after their console launch typically see PC account for around 13% of total players in the first three months across both releases”, adding that, in the case of Sony’s first-party titles in particular, that percentage is even lower (12%). This points to what we have known for some time: these PC ports are not performing as well as Sony would have liked – especially over the last few years – which may have contributed to the company’s recent decision.

Assuming both Bloomberg‘s report and Newzoo’s findings are accurate – which yours truly believes they are – what does all of this mean for the future of PC ports of highly popular PlayStation games? How did Sony arrive at this decision and why? Which factors may have led to this outcome? Let’s break everything down.

What really happened with Sony’s PlayStation ports for the PC?

There’s little doubt that, if Sony is indeed stepping away from PC ports – at least in terms of its signature, most valuable, single-player cinematic games – it’s doing so because its executives are thinking more about the future rather than the past. They may indeed be concerned about the optics of future major PlayStation titles being playable on non-PlayStation systems in a way they weren’t before. But that may not be the only – or even the most important – reason why: it may just have to do with past expectations and, well, money.

After doing his own research for a couple of days, consulting with all five popular AI chatbots and verifying data whenever possible, yours truly has put together the following table to illustrate the huge difference in sales between the original PlayStation titles and their respective PC ports. The table contains estimates for Steam sales of each of the 10 most successful PlayStation PC ports to date, the peak concurrent Steam users of each, as well as estimates for the equivalent PlayStation versions (across generations).

These are not official numbers by any means, as Sony has not publicly shared detailed sales figures for any of its PlayStation PC ports yours truly could find (just some initial numbers in a few investor briefings). Some of these estimates may also be a bit off the mark in March 2026 because (a) older data do not necessarily follow the same trajectory over time and (b) some PlayStation PC ports seem to have more of a “a long tail” (to continue selling in lower but steady numbers long after launch) than others.

While these may not be absolutely accurate figures, the picture emerging is clear. Sony’s efforts to bring across most of its AAA PlayStation titles to PC were initially successful, as the first few ports achieved a healthy 6:1 or 5:1 ratio (even higher in the case of Days Gone). Problem is, things did not play out the same way for most of the ports released later, even if some of them fall under much more valuable brands (such as The Last of Us). Instead of building a receptive, supportive audience over time, Sony’s PC ports seem to have started off strong but lost momentum in the span of less than three years.

The drop-off has been dramatic in some cases: the sequels of God of War or Horizon, for instance, never reached half the number of copies the earlier PC ports managed to sell (maybe implying that PC gamers were not entirely happy with the latter so chose not to play the former). Spider-man 2 – the first true AAA, system-seller exclusive game for the PlayStation5 – did not enter this top ten chart, despite getting a PC release mere months after its original release. Even titles that are close to what PC gamers traditionally seem to like in terms of gameplay, like Returnal, proved disappointing in terms of sales.

It’s fair to assume that, had Sony set specific internal targets for all these ports and actually hit them, it would not be pulling back from this strategy as it reportedly is. Maybe the company actually hadn’t set any specific such targets, treating any revenue coming from PlayStation PC ports as a nice bonus (even if the acquisition of Nixxes makes that hard to believe). Numbers, in any case, do not lie: compared to their original equivalents, PC versions of past PlayStation games just did not sell anywhere near to what the company probably thought they would based on the initial success of Horizon Zero Dawn.

To be clear, these PC games as a whole did generate considerable revenue and definitely some profit for Sony – ports of existing games are way, way cheaper to put together than develop new ones, after all – but apparently not enough to convince the company’s executives it’s worth risking future PlayStation hardware and software sales for it. At the end of the day, it all comes down to that.

Why did PC gamers fell out of love with PlayStation ports, then?

PlayStation fans, PC players or gamers in general express all sorts of opinions online about why these ports did well at first but not later on and some of those possible reasons ring true. The long stretch between a new PlayStation release and its equivalent PC port becoming available – what Newzoo highlighted in its analysis – did not indeed sit well with PC gamers, for instance, which makes sense even in pure marketing terms.

Many also seem to think that PlayStation PC ports were not going on sale often enough and others that the rare Steam/EGS discounts were not deep enough. Quite a few people were also miffed about Sony’s occasional PSN requirements, which were – from their perspective – not necessary for single-player games on PC.

Two things that few people seem to be talking about as possible reasons for lower-than-expected sales of recent PlayStation PC ports: software piracy and conversion quality. The former needs no explanation: being PC games, many single-player PlayStation titles can be found in illegal form to download and play for free, if one knows where to find them and how to make them run without “phoning home”. As a result, there are bound to be some – obviously not tracked – lost sales there, even if yours truly does not believe they were so many as to significantly change the trajectory of these games or cost Sony serious money.

The latter subject may have been of more importance: more than a few PC versions of PS4/PS5 games suffered from various technical issues upon release, sometimes taking Sony anything from a few months to more than a year to fix through software updates. PC gamers have always disliked problematic ports of past games for their systems, but being served PlayStation conversions in need of numerous patches – after literally waiting for years for these titles to become available on PC – surely did not help Sony’s case. That might even explain, to a degree, why earlier PlayStation PC ports actually sold better than later ones.

So what is next for Sony’s PC gaming efforts?

Having said all of the above, yours truly would not be so quick to mark this as a Sony exit, of sorts, from the PC games market – even if Bloomberg‘s report proves to be accurate. The Japanese company could – just as the article itself notes – return to frequent PC releases at any time, making this more of a “hitting pause” or “wait and see” moment than a “pivot away” moment for PlayStation. Or Sony could opt for a more focused approach, only porting titles on a case-by-case basis, according to what PC gamers are traditionally interested in.

Then there’s the games-as-a-service angle to consider. Sony is certainly not leaving the PC space when it comes to those, as it needs as many players as possible in order to make each one of its live service titles a success. Marathon just launched on PC too, Horizon Hunters Gathering will launch on PC alongside the PS5 version, as will Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls in August, as will Fairgame$ (whenever it finds its way to market). There’s even a certain current PlayStation live service title that would definitely do great on PC – we’re looking at you, Gran Turismo 7 – if Kazunori Yamauchi ever decided to go all in and do it properly.

In any case, Sony would do well to take a closer look at what went wrong with its PC experiment and find a way to fix it in the future. Maybe the pricing was indeed wrong in some cases (putting full-price tags on two- or three-year-old games may have been too much for some). Maybe those PSN requirements were actual dealbreakers in the eyes of people tired of creating online accounts for every single games publisher out there. Maybe steps can be taken to ensure that all future PC ports are flawless on a technical level.

Or maybe, just maybe, Sony doing things somewhat half-heartedly is what rubbed many PC gamers the wrong way. In which case the company could actually decide to release a major single-player AAA PlayStation game on PC day-and-date, just to see what happens. No risk, no reward… right?